Five minutes later, two other vehicles were on her tail, overtaking each other, taking turns to be three cars back. Jean maintained a steady sixty-five miles per hour. A careful driver. She’s probably not used to driving on motorways on her own, Sparkes thought. I wonder if this is the first time she’s made this journey.
He and Salmond had not spoken since they turned out of the services; they were concentrating on the chatter on the police channels. But at Winchester, when they heard Jean Taylor’s car had exited and was heading east, he told her to put her foot down.
They were picking up a bit more traffic, but Jean’s car was now only a mile ahead of them, with another police vehicle sandwiched between them.
“She’s stopping,” the officer messaged. “Trees on right, track, no gate. I’ll have to go on, or she’ll spot me. Will double back straightaway. She’s all yours.”
“Steady, Salmond,” Sparkes said. “Nice and steady.”
They almost missed her car, tucked down the muddy track, but Sparkes spotted the glint of metal in the trees at the last minute. “She’s here,” he said, and Salmond slowed and swung their car around. “Park across the road. We’ll need access for the other vehicles,” he said.
As they got out, a light rain started to patter down on the trees, and they pulled their coats from the boot. “She’s probably heard the car,” Sparkes whispered. “I don’t know how far back these trees go. I’ll go ahead, and you wait for the team. I’ll call you when I need you.” Salmond nodded, looking suddenly tearful.
He crossed the road quickly, turning and waving before disappearing into the trees.
There was not enough daylight yet to penetrate the woods, and he felt his way carefully. He couldn’t hear anything apart from his breathing and the crows cawing above him, disturbed by his presence.
He suddenly saw a movement ahead. A flash of something white in the gloom. He stopped and waited a moment until he was ready. He needed to steady himself and was glad Salmond wasn’t there to see him trembling like a diver on a high board. He took three deep breaths and then moved forward cautiously. He was worried he might stumble over her. He didn’t want to frighten her.
Then he saw her, on the ground under a tree. She was sitting on a coat, her legs tucked sideways, for all the world as if she were at a picnic. Beside her, the flowers in their tissue paper.
“Is that you, Bob?”
He froze at the sound of Jean’s voice. “Yes, Jean.”
“I thought I heard a car. I knew it would be you.”
“Why are you here, Jean?”
“Jeanie. I prefer you to call me Jeanie,” she said, still not looking at him.
“Why are you here, Jeanie?”
“I’ve come to see our baby girl.”
Sparkes crouched down beside her, then took off his coat and sat on it so he could be close to her. “Who is your baby girl, Jeanie?”
“Bella, of course. She’s here. Glen put her here.”
FIFTY-FOUR
The Widow
SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2010
I couldn’t stop myself. I had to go to her. The interview and the inquest started something in me, started me thinking all the time, and even the pills couldn’t do anything about it. I thought that with Glen gone there would be some peace, but there wasn’t. I was still thinking all the time. I couldn’t eat or sleep. I knew I had to go to her. Nothing else mattered.
It wasn’t the first visit. Glen had taken me to Bella’s grave on the Monday before he died. After he sat on my bed and told me he couldn’t sleep anymore. He started talking about the day Bella went missing, curled up on his side of the bed, with his back to me so I couldn’t see his face. I didn’t move once while he told me. I was scared I’d break the spell and he’d stop. So I listened without speaking.
He said he’d picked Bella up because she’d wanted him to. He hadn’t dreamed it. He knew that he’d left Bella on her own on the edge of a small wood on his way home to me, and he knew he’d done something terrible. She’d fallen asleep in the back of the van. He had a sleeping bag in the van. He just lifted her out, still asleep, from the back of the van, and put her under a tree to be found. He’d left some sweets for her to eat. Skittles. He’d meant to ring the police, but he was in a panic.
Then he got up and went out of the room before I could speak. I lay still as if I could stop time there, but my mind was racing away from me. All I could think was, Why did he have a sleeping bag in his van? Where did he get it from? I couldn’t let myself think about what had happened in the van, what my husband had done.
I wanted to blot it out, and I stood under the shower, letting the water drum on my head and fill my ears. But nothing could stop me from thinking.
I went down to him in the kitchen and told him we were going to find her. Glen looked at me blankly and said: “Jeanie, I left her nearly four years ago.” But I wasn’t taking no for an answer.
“We have to,” I said.
We got in our car and went looking for Bella. I made sure we were not being watched as we came out, but the press didn’t live on our street anymore. I’d already decided that if we saw one of the neighbors, we’d say we were going shopping at Bluewater.
The traffic was heavy, and we didn’t speak as we followed the signs for the M25.
We followed the route Glen must have taken that day from Winchester to Southampton and then on the country roads he took with Bella in the back of his van. I imagined her sitting happily on the floor of the van with a fistful of sweeties, and I held on to that image for grim death. I knew it wasn’t like that, really, but I couldn’t think about that yet.
Glen was pale and sweaty at the wheel. “This is bloody stupid, Jean,” he said. But I knew he wanted to go back to that day. To what happened. And I was letting him do this because I wanted Bella.
About two hours after we left home, he said, “It was here.” It didn’t look any different from dozens of clumps of trees we’d passed, but he pulled over.
“How can you be sure?” I asked.
“I made a mark on the fence,” he said. And there it was. A faded smear of car oil on a fence post.
He meant to come back, I thought, then pushed the thought aside.
Glen drove the van off the road so it couldn’t be seen. He must’ve done the same thing that day. Then we sat in silence. It was me who made the first move.
“Come on,” I said. And he undid his seat belt. His face had gone blank again, like it did that day in the hall. He didn’t look like Glen anymore, but I wasn’t frightened. He was shaking, but I didn’t touch him. When we got out, he led me to a tree near the edge and pointed at the ground.
“Here,” he said. “This is where I put her.”
“Liar,” I said, and he looked startled. “Where?” I demanded, my voice sounding like a shriek, scaring us both. He led me deeper into the trees and then stopped. I could see nothing to show anyone was here before, but I believed he was telling the truth this time. “I put her down here,” he said, and stumbled to his knees. I squatted down beside him under the tree and made him tell me all over again.
“She put her arms up to me. She was beautiful, Jeanie, and I just leaned over the wall and took her and put her in the van. When we stopped, I held her really close and stroked her hair. She liked it at first. Laughed. And I kissed her cheek. I gave her a sweet, and she loved it. Then she went to sleep.”
“She was dead, Glen. Not asleep. Bella was dead,” I said, and he started to sob.
“I don’t know why she died,” he said. “I didn’t kill her. I would know if I had, wouldn’t I?”
“Yes, you would,” I said. “You do.”
All I could hear was his sobbing, but I thought he was crying for himself, not for the child he had murdered.
He said, “Perhaps I held her too tight. I didn’t mean to. It was like a dream, Jeanie. Then I covered her up with the sleeping bag and branches and things to keep her safe.”
I could see a shred of faded blue material caught in the roots of the tree. We were kneeling beside Bella’s grave, and I stroked the ground, soothing her, letting her know she was safe now.